Retailers, restaurants, and other service providers advertise in a variety of ways in order to reach consumers. Commonly used methods of advertising include television, radio, billboards, newspapers, magazines, and Internet advertising. A problem arises with these traditional forms of advertisement, as the retailer does not necessarily know the identity of the customers they are attempting to reach. A retailer who places an advertisement of an offer in print media, such as a newspaper, only has the knowledge that they are reaching a broad group of people with a broad array of demographics and interests. Until a particular consumer has actually entered the store and redeemed the advertised offer, the retailer may not be able to identify their targeted consumer. At that point, the consumer has already made their purchase and so there is less opportunity to tailor incentives or offers to that particular consumer. For instance, the retailer might produce coupons at the point of sale (POS) and, if the customer is a “member” of that merchant's affinity program, the coupon may even be based on the customer's purchase history. The intent, however, is only to bring that one customer back and not bringing customers to the merchant initially.
There is a perceived opportunity to improve the shopping experience of consumers, while providing retailers with more efficient and effective advertising mechanisms. For instance, there is a perceived opportunity to distribute offers to consumers based on the consumer's geographic location and social network optionally in conjunction with credit card processing systems, wherein the offer is encoded with an offer identifier that assists in identifying the customers who receive, forward and/or redeem the offer.